The Boy Who Played With Fusion

By the age of 11, Taylor Wilson had mastered the science of rocket propulsion. At 13, his grandmother's cancer diagnosis drove him to investigate medical uses for radioactive isotopes. And at 14, Wilson became the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson's story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving children?In The Boy Who Played with Fusion, science journalist Tom Clynes follows Taylor Wilson's extraordinary journey - from his Arkansas home where his parents encouraged his intellectual passions, to the present, when now-17-year-old Wilson is winning international science competitions with devices designed to prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material into the US.Brilliant, funny and inspiring, The Boy Who Played with Fusion will delight anyone who believes in the ability of gifted children to change the world.

This story of a child prodigy and his unique upbringing is “an engrossing journey to the outer realms of science and parenting” (Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish). A PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist Like many young children, Taylor Wilson dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Only Wilson mastered the science of rocket propulsion by the age of nine. When he was eleven, he tried to cure his grandmother’s cancer—and discovered new ways to produce medical isotopes. Then, at fourteen, Wilson became the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion, building a 500-million-degree reactor—in his parents’ garage. In The Boy Who Played with Fusion, science journalist Tom Clynes narrates Wilson’s extraordinary story. Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, Wilson quickly displayed an advanced intellect. Recognizing their son’s abilities and the limitations of their local schools, his parents took a bold leap and moved the family to Reno, Nevada. There, Wilson could attend a unique public high school created specifically for academic superstars. Wilson is now designing devices to prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material and inspiring a new generation to take on the challenges of science. If you’re wondering how someone so young can achieve so much, The Boy Who Played with Fusion has the answer. Along the way, Clynes’ narrative teaches parents, teachers, and society how and why we urgently need to support high-achieving kids. “An essential contribution to our understanding of the most important underlying questions about the development of giftedness, talent, creativity, and intelligence.” —Psychology Today “A compelling study of the thrills—and burdens—of being born with an alpha intellect.” —Financial Times

Offers an account of child genius Taylor Wilson's successful quest to build his own nuclear reactor at the age of 14, and an exploration of how gifted children can be nurtured to do extraordinary things. 35,000 first printing. Illustrations.

Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science, and his basement experiments—building homemade fireworks, brewing moonshine, and concocting his own self-tanning lotion—were more ambitious than those of other boys. While working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David’s obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard garden shed. In The Radioactive Boy Scout, veteran journalist Ken Silverstein recreates in brilliant detail the months of David’s improbable nuclear quest. Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the U.S. government and from industry experts. (Ironically, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was his number one source of information.) Scavenging antiques stores and junkyards for old-fashioned smoke detectors and gas lanterns—both of which contain small amounts of radioactive material—and following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation. His unsanctioned and wholly unsupervised project finally sparked an environmental catastrophe that put his town’s forty thousand residents at risk and caused the EPA to shut down his lab and bury it at a radioactive dumpsite in Utah. An outrageous account of ambition and, ultimately, hubris that sits comfortably on the shelf next to such offbeat science books as Driving Mr. Albert and stories of grand capers like Catch Me If You Can, The Radioactive Boy Scout is a real-life adventure with the narrative energy of a first-rate thriller.

Showing managers how to break out of the prison of hierarchical structure by emphasizing intellectual, emotional, and spiritual qualities, the authors creatively integrate new science and systems theory management ideas and present practical applications.

Piano-prodigy Isabella, eleven, whose black father and white mother struggle to share custody, never feels whole, especially as racial tensions affect her school, her parents both become engaged, and she and her stepbrother are stopped by police.

The children were disappearing. And the worst thing about it? No one noticed A rainmaker brings rain to a drought-stricken town. The stranger amazes the townspeople with magic mirrors and bewitches the children with his beautiful butterfly. First, one child vanishes. Then another. And another. Only one young man sees through the lies and decides to act. You'll love this dark, mysterious young adult novel. Winner of the Governor General's Award. Get it now.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah (it's pronounced SAH-rah, thank you) has a successful blog creating fusion recipes. When Sarah is invited to compete on Cyber Chef, a virtualcooking competition, her twists on her Baba's recipes are not enough to pique the palate of the show's producers. She is pushed to present dishes that represent her Filipinx culture, but these flavours are foreign to her since her parents raisedher emphatically Jewish. To survive Cyber Chef and find her cultural identity, Sarah must discover why her mother turned her back on all things Filipinx, and learn the true meaning of fusion.